


Crowned

by Andrina_Nightshade



Series: Andrina's Canonverse Short Fics [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Biting, F/M, Idiots in Love, No Pregnancy, Romance, hayfever sufferers beware, no smut but plenty of suggestive comments, pure fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:40:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,689
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24840943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andrina_Nightshade/pseuds/Andrina_Nightshade
Summary: Based on the following prompt from @reylo_prompts:While flying across the galaxy, Ben makes flower crowns for Rey every time he can find plants meaning love, devotion and hope. One day they’re on Chandrila. He makes a crown using local blooms and those coming from Alderaan. They’re for wedding crowns.Or: Ben Solo: The Proposal Mark II
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Andrina's Canonverse Short Fics [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1989178
Comments: 41
Kudos: 148
Collections: Reylo Prompt Fills (@reylo_prompts)





	Crowned

**Author's Note:**

> Since all my muse is currently offering is drama and angst over in _Kintsugi_ , it was time for a fluffy palate cleanser. Thanks to @reylo_prompts for the inspiration!

Who would have thought that the man who was once adamant that the past had to die (violently, if necessary) would turn out to be so fussy about tradition? 

Some of them puzzle Rey. Such as his insistence on chronicling their travels using ink and parchment. No matter how much she points out how much simpler it would be on a data pad, he merely smiles at her and goes back to his antiquated tools. In another, kinder life, Ben might have been a scholar, with his ink-stained fingers and brow.

Some of them she adores - like his habit of braiding her hair each morning. Although he has taught her the different styles and their meanings, she enjoys it purely for the feel of his hands in her hair every morning. It is soothing, a sense of belonging. 

(Of course, it often becomes a prelude for his hands, and eventually his lips, to find purchase _elsewhere_ on her body, until her sweat-slicked skin is pressed to his and they tumble into their bed.

Or to the floor.

Or the cockpit.

Or against the nearest wall.)

He has lots of little habits - from the scientific precision and ceremony of his tea making, to only drinking from a cup or mug held in his right hand - all of which he maintains are _tradition._

Tradition or quirks, Rey doesn’t really mind; for all of them are so fundamentally _Ben_.

* * *

When they first return to Takodana, stepping off the _Falcon_ on the shores of Lake Nymeve, there is a familiar tension thrumming through their bond. 

Rey understands.

They had put off this journey for weeks; Ben constantly finding excuses, or trying to cajole her into picking a different destination. The lakes of Naboo, the sprawling cloud forests of Kashyyyk (conveniently at a point when he knows Chewie is on the opposite side of the Mid Rim), the endless oceans of Mon Cala, the sprawling metropolis of Coruscant… Quite literally, he would rather they visit the driest, most lifeless planet in the galaxy than return to Takodana.

Regret rolls over him like waves against a shore. Even though the garb and mannerisms of Kylo Ren are gone, his shadow still lingers in Ben’s mind. Rey has come to realise that, whilst it was convenient for her to regard Ben Solo and Kylo Ren as two separate entities when they stood on opposite sides of a war, the truth was infinitely more complex. They are, and always will be, one man. One man with a lifetime of guilt and trauma for the sins he has committed.

Including hunting and abducting the woman now curled up in his lap, and nuzzling her face into his hair.

Ben has already apologised a thousand times. Rey even threatened to bite him on the mouth if he uttered the word ‘sorry’ yet again. But there is no recrimination in her threat. She simply holds him close, peppers little kisses on his forehead, and promises him that they will make better memories of this place.

They land shortly after rainfall has dispersed. The air is thick with the scent of _life._ Rey cannot contain an excited squeal as her boots squelch in the mud. 

That at least draws a semblance of smile from Ben.

He reaches for her hand; the warmth of his skin is a delicious contrast to the chill in the air. “Do you mind if I have some time alone?” As if to punctuate the point, he taps two fingers to his temple.

“Are you going to brood?” 

Hair falls into his eyes as he shakes his head. “Not exactly… I just have some things to work through.”

Rey stands on her tiptoes to kiss him softly. “All right,” she says. “If you need me, just shout.” She taps her own temple in response.

He huffs a laugh before pressing his lips against her brow. “Back soon.”

‘Soon’ turns into an hour, with no sight nor sound of him after he has disappeared through the treeline. 

Rey had once considered herself a patient person - she had waited fifteen years on a desert planet for a family who would never return. She waited a year for her bond-mate to extricate himself from the shackles of the First Order. As much as she wants to hold his hand as he sorts through the turbulence of his own mind (and she has held him so many times in the throes of a nightmare or emotional catharsis), she also wants to respect his privacy.

Mostly.

She chews on her lower lip. No, she shouldn’t…

Ah, kriff. 

Rey drops to her knees in the now drying mud, closes her eyes, and casts out for him. It takes only a few seconds to locate Ben, and she unfurls a tendril of the Force.

There is a surprising lightness in his mind as her own brushes against it. That is, until he gives her a gentle push out of his mind. 

_Patience_ , he whispers into her mind. He sounds almost playful. _I have a surprise for you_.

When he eventually returns, his hands are full of blossoms of every colour - she cannot name most of them, but her heart warms at the sight. Ben Solo, the man who once held the power to burn the galaxy at his merest caprice, wanted to pick flowers for her.

“Sorry,” she murmurs against his lips, one hand cradling the back of his head.

He retaliates by sinking his teeth into her lower lip. “Turnabout is fair play,” he says in response to her yelp of surprise. He then soothes her with another kiss, slow and lingering, until she is almost dizzy with him.

Once they part, Rey eagerly reaches for the flowers in his grasp. However, he bats her hand away.

"I'm not finished yet," he says with a twinkle in his eyes when her reply is a whine.

They find a felled tree near the edge of the lake. He lays the flowers down for a moment to draw her into his arms and kiss her once more. 

And then Ben sets to work.

He begins to weave the stems together with the same single-minded focus he had done with her hair this morning.

(The second time - his first attempt at braiding had rapidly dissolved into intimacy; a joining that was as much for comfort as for pleasure).

“Is this another Aldernaanian tradition?” she asks. 

A non-committal hum is his response. “Not uniquely - and anyway, this was supposed to be a surprise until _someone_ decided to be nosey.” He tries to look menacing - and she has seen him truly menacing before - but all he manages is an expression of petulance that causes Rey to dissolve into laughter. 

He huffs. “Can’t you just enjoy the mystery? Anway, I’m almost done.”

Rey closes her eyes in concession. She doesn’t _quite_ mediate… merely allows the Force to flow through her as she drinks in the beauty of the planet. Chirping birds, the breeze in her hair, the soft lap of waves against the lakeshore, and the scent of a planet just teeming with _life._

A spike of satisfaction - Ben’s - draws her focus. But she keeps her eyes shut until she feels the brush of his knuckle against her cheek. “You can look now.”

He holds the effort of his labours out to her. Her first thought is that it looks like a nest, large enough to house a family of porgs, with those lovely blossoms on the outside. 

“It’s beautiful,” she tells him, although she can hear the puzzlement in her own voice.

He looks almost boyish. “It’s supposed to be a flower crown.” 

Ah. Of course the girl who grew up in the Goazon Badlands wouldn’t recognise a flower crown. She feels foolish; but Ben tips a finger under her chin to prevent her from looking away. 

“It’s a token of… love… in some of the Core Worlds,” he explains. “May I?”

He had offered her a crown once before - along with power, the galaxy, himself… And she had rejected him then. An offer made in the wake of blood and fire and violence. It was supposed to be a grand gesture (and part of her, looking back, wonders if he might have also been trying to _propose_ in his own inept way).

Now, here, there is no grand gesture. No threat. Rey has him already - the only part of his earlier offer she had actually wanted. If he wants to say that he loves her with flower crowns then that is fine by her.

She dutifully tips her head and allows him to rest it upon her head. He still treats it like a grand ceremony. His breath still hitches in his chest as it had done on the _Supremacy._ But she is rewarded with his smile and a look of awe as he gazes upon her.

Rey kisses him then, dizzy with the scent of blossoms and the overwhelming rush of his love.

* * *

It quickly becomes her favourite of Ben’s little quirks.

(Well, second favourite... Only because the braiding so often leads to _other_ activities...)

(And flower crowns are much less irritating than him insisting she waits for the ink to dry before reading his latest entry on their travels - who has the luxury of _time_ to wait for ink to dry anyway?)

They mostly land on green planets, fragrant garden worlds. And on every one, he weaves a crown for her.

She attempts one for him too - a simple circlet of daisies who rapidly wilt after being placed on his head, much to Rey’s mortification. But Ben still regards it with the awe and reverence he might afford to a crown of purest beskar.

At first, Ben likes to peel off and collect the blooms himself. However, with some cajoling, and much kissing, he relents (with mock reluctance) and allows her to join. 

After a lifetime of the desert, Rey plunges into the first meadow they happen across, and begins plucking flowers herself. Scavenger instincts are hard to forget, and she has already gathered a fistful before Ben has even managed his second flower.

When she presents the blossoms to him, the tiniest frown appears on his lips. 

She squirms a little, and looks at the flowers. All are beautiful and perfect - a rainbow of colours in her hand. “Is something wrong?” she asks, hating how much her voice sounds like that of a scolded child.

Whether through the bond, or simply because he has picked up on her tone, he suddenly notes her discomfort. “No, not at all,” he tells her, placing a placating hand on her shoulder. He tries to smile, but it fades at Rey’s sceptical expression, and instead sighs. “You’ll think it’s silly.”

“Ben Solo, yesterday you refused to finish your journal entry because we only had blue ink,” she tells him. Ink was ink as far as Rey is concerned, but it was another thing he seemed so precious, so _traditional_ about. “ _That_ was silly.”

A groan escapes him, and he pinches the bridge of his nose. “Not this again. You write in black ink, only.” He shakes his head. “We’re getting off subject…” He takes her free hand, and pulls her to the ground. “Flowers… there is a language associated with them. Different blossoms have different meanings.”

“Oh, this _is_ another tradition,” she says with mock exasperation. She thinks that people in the Core Worlds have too much time on their hands to make up rules about ink and tea and to attribute meaning to flowers. Pretty or not. Edible or not. These are the only rules she needs to know about them. But her expression softens. “And what… message… am I sending with these flowers?”

“A confusing one,” Ben tells her, and the unease melts from him. Together, they lay out the blossoms and he holds each one up to her. The one with silky white petals is first. “This is a lily - this is a mourning flower.”

“Oh.” She shrugs. “I just thought it looked pretty.”

“There’s nothing wrong with liking beauty, Rey.” Ben pulls her close and presses a kiss to her brow. “You’re right - I am being silly.” He huffs. “At the end of the day, they’re just flowers.”

Rey presses the back of her hand against his cheek. “That’s it, I’m taking you to the nearest Med Centre.” He makes a surprised sound in the back of his throat, and her lips curl into a smirk. “You’re abandoning tradition, Solo. You must be deathly ill.”

Suddenly, his long fingers are on her ribs, and she shrieks as he begins to tickle her. “Hilarious,” he mutters.

In revenge, she tackles him to the ground (channelling the Force to help her a little, because, _kriff_ he is massive) and launches an assault of kisses on his nose, his cheeks, his lips.

* * *

Once they have straightened their clothes, and picked the grass out of each other’s hairs, Ben resumes his lesson on the language of flowers. “This is a cornflower,” he says, holding up the brilliant blue blossom which reminds her of his (now healed) kyber crystal. “It symbolises hope and devotion.” He then moves to pick up a plant with tiny purple flowers. “This heather symbolises wealth.” 

She takes mental notes. His voice is soft, and she remembers her notion that he might have made a brilliant teacher in another life. He had _offered_ to teach her, back when they first met… And she had responded to his offer by scarring his face with a lightsaber. Her hand reaches for his cheek, and she feels the ridges of his scar beneath the pad of her thumb.

“Seems I need a teacher after all,” she murmurs.

“You’re perfect as you are,” he says, drawing an arm over her shoulder. “Besides, if we get stranded on a desert planet, your skillset is considerably more valuable than mine.” He winks, before resuming the lesson.

* * *

There are sprigs of dizzying lavender, stunning carpets of blue cornflowers, dusting of forget-me-nots, and even the occasional rose (although Ben takes his time to thoroughly denude it of its thorns before he touches it to her head). 

As nonsense as the notion sounds, Rey has to admit that she likes learning about the language of flowers. Even if she still maintains the black-ink-only rule is bantha fodder, she loves his devotion to these little traditions. 

After all, he has had so much _worse_ devotions.

* * *

Dawn is just peering over the horizon when they land the _Falcon_ on Chandrilla. Although they have supplies to pick up from Hanna City, he guides the ship to a small town on the seafront. 

A salt breeze whips their hair as they disembark. Sunlight dapples on the water, the clearest blue she has ever seen. Ben must feel the waves of euphoria crashing over her, as he breaks into a grin. “I knew you’d like it here,” he says with just a touch of smugness. 

She sticks her tongue out at him in response. 

The _Falcon’s_ environmental controls have been temperamental - well, more so than usual - these last few days. Rey elects to stay and fix them whilst Ben heads out to the marketplace. “And don’t forget your black ink!” she shouts cheekily after him, earning only a groan from her bond-mate.

It only takes a few minutes to identify the problem with the _Falcon._ Well, the problem with the controls. Rey still maintains that, as much as she adores the vessel, it seems to be held together through sheer force of will, and electrical tape. A quick rewiring job later, and the cool air cycle is back on at a pleasant temperature.

Ben will still be gone for some time, so she collects her datapad and decides to read on the ramp of the _Falcon_ whilst she waits. Their HoloNet reception has been incredibly variable of late, but here on Chandrilla, the signal is strong.

Quite why _flowers_ spring to mind, she doesn’t know. She suspects the thought is Ben’s rather than her own, and she fidgets with anticipation. Has he spotted the blooms for her latest “crown”? A smile crosses her lips - she might eventually grow to like traditions in general…

She pulls up an article on flower crowns… only for a frown to crease her face as she reads.

Barely twenty minutes pass, and Ben appears on the horizon. He is whistling a familiar tune, and there is a lightness in his step as he moves. 

That is, until he catches a spike of annoyance from her across the bond, and his steps falter. 

He lays down the parcels from his trip to the market, including a bouquet of stunning red and purple blossoms. “Rey, is something wrong…?”

“You omitted to mention flower crowns are for weddings,” she says evenly. His eyes widen, and he suddenly looks away like a child caught stealing sweets. For such a large man, he seems to shrink under the intensity of her stare. 

“They’re not just for weddings,” he counters, but there is no heat in his argument.

She shakes her head, and brandishes the datapad at him. “No, apparently they are also given in lieu of jewellery as a token of _betrothal_.” She rubs a hand on the back of her neck. “Have you been proposing to me without me realising?”

As he lifts his gaze, she feels him open his mind to her. Words that will not form on his lips instead come spilling over via their bond.

_We’ve never spoken of marriage, Rey._

_Ben Solo, I have spent the last year travelling the galaxy with you,_ she sends back pointedly. _I sleep in your arms every night._ Her expression softens. _I love you. I wanted you when we were on the opposite sides of a **kriffing** war. Why would you think I ever wanted to be apart from you again? _

Her words quell something within him - he looks simultaneously awed and yet crestfallen.

Rey points to the bouquet he had picked up at the market. “What are those? I’ve never seen flowers like them before.”

He sighs, and reaches for her hand. She falls into his embrace, simply enjoying the feel of him before he finally speaks.

“They’re a type of Aldernaanian rose,” he murmurs into her hair. His lips brush her brow before he continues. “This is one of the few places in the galaxy where they still grow.”

There is something else he wants to say; Rey can feel him shielding his thoughts in a way he hasn’t done in months now. The last time was after a particularly vivid nightmare of his father’s death, and he had been skittish about letting her in again for days afterwards.

“Ben…?”

“They… _Kriff_ , how do I say this? On Alderaan, every bride wore one of these in her wedding crown.” He pulls away to look at her, and suddenly everything falls into place. 

“Ben Solo,” she says, “Were you about to ask for my hand?”

A tiny nod is his reply.

Happiness blooms within her; she projects it onto him, until his grin is as brilliant and wide as her own. She wraps her arms around his shoulders and kisses him deeply and soundly, until he is moaning into her mouth.

When they part for air, he presses his forehead to hers. “I take it, that was a yes?”

She elbows him playfully in the stomach. “We’re in each others’ minds, you arse,” she says; try as she might to affect annoyance, nothing can dampen her pleasure now. “Of course it was yes. What made you think I would say anything else?”

_Because you’ve turned me down once before._

From the stricken look on his face, he hadn’t meant to share that thought. But it hangs in the air between them, echoing until those words are all they can both hear.

Words alone cannot offer the answer she wants to give. Instead, she offers him a memory.

 _Herself, stirring from her unconscious state in the smoke-filled wreck of Snoke’s throne room. Air thick with the scent of burning duraplast, molten metal and death. Scrambling for her lightsaber. Crawling over to where Kylo - no,_ **_Ben_ ** _\- still lay prone. Fighting the urge to touch him, to share the kiss she had so hoped for in the turbolift. Whispering to him, “I don’t want that. All I wanted was you.”_

When the memory recedes, both of their faces are wet with tears. 

“I’m sorry,” he says thickly.

“I know.” She pulls him closer, and bites his lower lip. He lets out an undignified mewl. “Turnabout is fair play, my love. Your own words, I believe.”

A throaty laugh tumbles from him; she adds her own, and soon they are rolling around in the sand, tears of a very different flavour streaming from their eyes. 

Once Rey has regained her composure, she pulls him into a brief, tender kiss. “Let the past die, Ben. Focus on the future - _our future.”_

“Our future,” he echoes, and his eyes sparkle with wonder. “I never…” he swallows. “I never thought I would have one… Much less with you.” He nuzzles the soft skin of her neck, laying gentle kisses there that feel like the overture to something _more._ “Shall we clean this sand off?” 

Exactly what he plans to do after they are clean, Rey can already decipher from his expression, and a familiar ache builds within her.

“Yes please.”

They help each other to their feet, and gather up the forgotten parcels from the ramp of the _Falcon._ Rey buries her face into the bouquet, feels the caress of the petals against her nose and cheeks, and drinks in their fragrance. “They’re beautiful,” she tells him honestly, and he flushes to the tips of his ears. “I can’t wait for my _betrothal_ crown.”

“Have I finally converted you to liking traditions, then?” He asks with a teasing glint in his eyes.

Rey hums for a moment before shrugging her shoulders. “I’ll think on it. Although you’re still wrong about the blue ink,” she tells him.

“Agree to disagree, wife?”

“Whatever you say, _husband.”_


End file.
